Greetings!

Very unoriginal title there...and I'm late...I think I'm off to a bad start.

My name is Andrea Duda. Arthur and I met at the University of Michigan a long time ago, and pretty much whatever I know about opera, I know from him.

I'm a librarian, the head of the Sciences-Engineering Library at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In my other life I'm a student, working on a master's degree in pastoral theology at Chaminade University in Honolulu. The reason I'm late in getting started here is that I was in Hawaii for three weeks. While I'm doing most of my coursework online, the school requires that you come to campus once a year for a real-time class. So I was in Honolulu for a couple of weeks then divided the third week between the Big Island and Maui. I go back to work on Monday and that's going to be hard!

And now that I'm back, I find my cat -- Zack -- is doing a good job of letting me know he didn't like my being away. He acts like I have the plague.

OK...I've done assignment number one. Now off to see what else we have planned.